The only remaining Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Great Pyramid of Giza, has stood in the Egyptian desert for more than 4,500 years. However, how it got there has long baffled archaeologists, with no surviving ancient texts clarifying how its massive stone blocks were lifted and assembled.

Potential theories include using ramps and a slow, layer-by-layer build. However, this fails to explain how these stones – often weighing up to 60 tons – were raised hundreds of feet into the air in just two decades. However, an incredible new study has proposed that the ancient buildings used a hidden internal system of counterweights and pulley-like mechanisms. In research published in Nature, Dr Simon Andreas Scheuring of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York has calculated that builders could lift and place these blocks at an incredible pace, sometimes as quickly as one block per minute.

Dr Scheuring argued that this would only have been possible with sliding counterweights, rather than brute-force hauling, to generate the power needed to raise the stones to the upper levels of the pyramid, also known as Khufu.

The study, according to the Daily Mail, also notes architectural features inside the pyramid which support this theory, identifying the Grand Gallery and Ascending Passage – initially thought to be ceremonial corridors – as sloped ramps where counterweights may have been dropped to create a lifting force. The Antechamber, meanwhile, long thought to be a security feature, has also been suggested as a pulley-like mechanism that could help lift even the heaviest blocks.

If true, the study suggested the Great Pyramid was constructed from the inside out, starting at an internal core and using hidden pulley systems to raise stones as the structure developed.

Dr Scheuring also pointed to scratches, wear marks and polished surfaces along the walls of the Grand Gallery as evidence that large sledges once moved repeatedly along its length, suggesting mechanical stress consistent with sliding loads rather than foot traffic or ritual use.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu, the oldest and largest of the Giza pyramids, was built as the tomb for Pharaoh Khufu around 2560 BC – about 4,585 years ago. However, the pharaoh’s mummy and his treasures have never been found, thought to have been robbed during the ancient period, long before modern discovery.

Meanwhile, recent evidence confirmed the existence of a lost Nile tributary that allowed heavy granite from Aswan and limestone from Tura to reach the Giza plateau by boat, solving another mystery of material transport during the pyramid’s construction. Researchers mapped this extinct, buried branch of the Nile using satellite radar, geophysical surveys and deep soil coring, revealing it ran near the complex.